All posts tagged Draw Something

It was a game that was so successful it essentially spurred Zynga, at the time one of the hottest consumer Web IPOs of the year, to buy the company behind the game for more than $180 million.

“Draw Something” is a modern version of “Pictionary,” where users guess a word based on a drawing sent to their smartphone or tablet.

But soon after Zynga acquired “Draw Something,” the game faded in popularity as most do. The games industry is a hits-driven business, and requires developers to constantly be testing and releasing new titles to sate the short attention span of gamers, especially when it comes to smartphone games.

Things weren’t looking good for Zynga’s fated acquisition of “Draw Something.” That was until late last month, when Zynga released a sequel for the game, which became widely available as the company discussed its downbeat quarter and upcoming transition year.

Now, “Draw Something 2″ has been topping the Apple App Store for the better part of the week, and is among the top-100 grossing apps on the App Store, according to AppData. Read More »

Dan Porter, chief executive officer of OMGPOP, speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York in 2010.

Zynga said Monday that Dan Porter has left the company about a year after buying his mobile-game maker OMGPOP.

The news comes just as Zynga released the sequel to OMGPOP’s popular game “Draw Something” in Sweden as part of a test market.

In a short statement emailed to WSJ, Zynga’s chief operating officer, David Ko, thanked Mr. Porter “ for his efforts in making the Draw Something franchise a success and wish him well in his future endeavors.” Zynga said Sean Kelly would take over Mr. Porter’s position as head of the company’s New York office. Mr. Kelly joined Zynga in 2009 and led the launch of the game “CityVille.”

Mr. Porter couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Zynga paid $183 million for OMGPOP in March 2012, its biggest acquisition to date, after watching the success of “Draw Something,” which is like “Pictionary” in that it asks players to draw images on their mobile phones based on selected words and have their friends guess the words. At the time of the deal, the game had 35 million people and was only six-weeks old. Read More »